Drawn and Quarterly announced today that it is expanding its Shigeru Mizuki library. Kitaro will join previous publishing efforts NonNonBa (2012) and Onwards Toward Our Noble Deaths (2011) in early 2013. News began to seep out about this latest offering at this year's Book Expo America, and the resulting interest caused D+Q to make the news more widely public.I'm glad. I think this is really good news; I look forward to seeing this one and am pleased that D+Q has done such different works the first three times out with Mizuki.

According to the press material, Kitaro is Mizuki's best-selling work and most famous creation. The Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro serial first appeared in Shonen magazine for boys in 1959. It would eventually spawn a number of TV shows, films and video games, becoming a cultural touchstone for mid-to-late 20th Century Japan.

Mizuki turned 90 this year and is a multiple international comics awards winner; his life is the subject of a popular television drama.

D+Q Publisher Chris Oliveros described the cartoonist as "a true virtuoso of manga" in D+Q's press material, citing his multiple creative avenues as revelatory of different aspects of his general artistic sensibility.

Mizuki was represented in negotiations by Maki Hakui of Press Pop in Japan. As is usually the case with D+Q efforts, the English-language work will be distributed in the US by FSG and in Canada by Raincoast Books.